


A Sudden Lapse of Reason

by startwithsparks



Series: The Sparrow and the Wolf [2]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Age Difference, Dubious Consent, F/M, Oral Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-18
Updated: 2012-06-18
Packaged: 2017-11-08 00:55:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/437359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/startwithsparks/pseuds/startwithsparks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arya is persistent, Jaqen just wants to sleep.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Sudden Lapse of Reason

When she first woke, Arya couldn't quite remember where she'd fallen into bed. She knew she wasn't in her own bed, the position of the room around her was completely different, and she struggled for a few brief moments of uncertainty to think back to the night before. The faintly crackling fire just beyond the bed helped cast a little light on her surroundings, and as her eyes adjusted to the dim light, she lulled her head to the side where she found Jaqen's belt thrown over a chair in the corner, the buckle glinting in the firelight. His boots were piled haphazardly next to it, her own dropped not too far away. She pressed her hand to her forehead as she rolled to her back, sliding her palms down over her face and rubbing at her eyes. 

It took a few moments more, but as her mind continued to wake, she remembered a slightly too-wild dinner across the bridge – she definitely could not hold her own against the other Faceless Men when it came to drinking – before coercing Jaqen into letting her stay in his bed when they got back. She couldn't remember his protests exactly, but they were always the same – a girl is too young, a girl doesn't know what she asks, a girl has a perfectly suitable bed of her own and would you please stop giving me that look. Arya gave herself a victorious smirk, tugging the blankets up to her shoulders as she glanced at the body next to her. 

Jaqen was right about one thing – though she would absolutely never admit it to him or anyone else – she didn't know nearly as much as she claimed to. She wasn't as naïve as most other girls about these kinds of things, despite growing up in a house that tried hard to shelter her, but she wasn't content to accept any answer she was given the way Sansa was. Arya grew up with three older boys around perfectly willing to tease her when she tried to spy on them, which she had, and often. 

She caught Jon bathing once and hid from him for three days, afraid that he would _know_ that it made her feel like these wheels were turning slowly in her gut. What he noticed was her avoiding him, and then Theon bullied him into sitting her down and explaining about men and women and what they did together. He made her swear that she would never tell her mother or her sister or Robb that he said anything to her at all, and Arya couldn't stand the blush long enough to even consider passing on the knowledge. In hindsight, she didn't think Jon really knew any more than she knew now, but the it had felt like he was sharing some huge secret with her. But aside from what she'd seen – first living in Flea Bottom, and then here on her stake-outs across the bridge – she was aware that her practical knowledge was lacking at best. 

Arya knew feelings, though. She knew the way she felt the first time she saw Jon and the way he always made her feel afterwards. She knew the way Gendry tapped into that same place inside her despite her best efforts not to want him back. And she knew that this felt bigger and coiled deeper than any of that had even suggested it could. This wasn't some passing infatuation, a flame that flickered and fizzled before finally burning out, this was a constant, aching tension, and the more he told her no, the tighter the need twisted. 

So no, Arya didn't know anything more than what Jon managed to stammer out years ago, but she knew what she wanted and she knew that she wanted Jaqen to give it to her. 

Arya untangled herself from the blankets, rolling on to her other side to fit herself against his back. She almost felt bad about waking him, but the longer she laid there the more the tension built. If she was awake and restless then he, at the very least, would be awake with her. There was just enough light from the dying fire beyond to see the blankets pooled around his hips and his arm draped over the other side of the bed, looking like one good shove would topple him right out of bed. While that would wake him abruptly enough, Arya didn't think it would endear him to her plight any. Instead, she huddled up behind him, sliding her hands along slightly sweat-damp skin and up the curve of his spine. The closer she got, the more she could feel the heat coming off him, and wondered why she hadn't noticed how hot he burned before. He even smelled warm, like sweat and wood and blood. 

Jaqen grunted faintly and Arya smirked, wrapping her arm tight around his waist as she pressed her forehead to the space between his shoulders. He stirred enough to draw his hand back and rest it on top of hers, his larger palm wrapping completely around hers to hold her, but then his breathing fell into that same heavy rhythm as before. 

She jabbed him slightly in the back of the thigh with her knee. "Wake up."

Jaqen sighed and leaned back enough to look at her over his shoulder, his hair mussed and his eyes still mostly lidded. "A man needs sleep," he said, nuzzling briefly into her hair before he turned over again. But Arya tightened her hold on him giving him another blunt nudge. Pushing back the blankets, Jaqen grumbled and rolled to his back, reaching up to slide an arm around her shoulders and gather her in against his chest, her head cradled on his shoulder. She slipped her arm across his stomach, curling her fingers around the blankets at his hip. "Go back to sleep, lovely girl..." he murmured, looking down at her with a faint, insincere, scowl. 

"I can't," she answered, tilting her head to look at him.

"Why?"

Arya shrugged and rest her cheek against his chest. For a moment she considered playing sweet, but she knew Jaqen too well to think he'd fall for that, and it was too much work that she didn't think she needed to put in when being forthcoming with him usually had better results. "I've had these strange dreams," she started, "and I thought that staying with you might help keep them away, but instead I just have another distraction keeping me awake." She shifted closer to him, sliding her leg over his thigh slightly so she could roll partly on her stomach. "Now I can't rest because I feel..." she frowned, shoulders tensing as she squirmed against his side like she was trying to work that tight energy out of her body, "strung thin, like my body wants to burst but doesn't know how." 

He stared at her for a moment, contemplation and conflict mixing in his dark eyes, and then sighed heavily. His arm slipped down from her shoulders to wrap around her waist instead, keeping her snug against his body. "A girl is persistent," he sighed, but he seemed more bemused with her than anything, that smirk playing faintly, almost hidden, at the very corners of his lips. 

"I wouldn't have to be persistent if you'd just give me what I wanted," Arya answered, tilting her head to look at him.

He was clearly biting back a smirk as he shook his head at her. "And if I do this thing for you, will you let me sleep?" 

Trying her best to contain a smirk, Arya scrunched her shoulders again. "I might..." 

With a chuckle, the sound heavy and dark, Jaqen tightened his arms around her and abruptly flipped her on her back beneath him. As jarring as it was, Arya was able to collect herself well enough before he drew her into a kiss, his resolve crumbling a little at a time between them. Every time she tugged him closer or arched up towards him, she could feel a little of it chipping away, the tension in his back and shoulders bleeding out as he unwrapped his arms from around her waist and braced both hands next to her shoulders instead. For a while, he hovered there, giving her just enough contact to keep her from dragging him further down against her body, but still keeping a fine line of space between them. She didn't even know if he _would_ touch her, until his fingers curled through her hair and came to rest on the curve of her neck.

Jaqen broke the kiss, leaving Arya arching up in a vain attempt to keep contact with him, and stroked his thumb slowly along her jaw. She couldn't read the look on his face – something contemplative and guarded at the same time. Her hands gripped his upper arms and when he finally pressed his thumb under her jaw and tilted her chin up to expose the unblemished line of her throat, Arya' couldn't stop her breath from shuddering past her lips. She thought she would have to learn how to hide those compulsive reactions in the future, but with him, she didn't see any reason to hold back, not when every reaction seemed to draw him closer and break whatever resolve he had before tonight. 

When he finally lowered himself again, he didn't meet her lips, but trailed a line of swift kisses down her throat. Some strange instinct in her almost bristled at the hint of teeth on her skin, but the tension coiled down to join the heat in her gut. Instead of hating that sharp slide as he chased her pulse with biting kisses, she turned her head to the side and bared her neck just enough. She felt him pause and chuckle faintly, tongue teasing over the lightly abused skin, and ignored her offer in order to continue down her collarbone and along the center of her chest instead. His hand finally trailed down from her neck, nails grazing her skin to see if he could pull the same faint whimpers from her that his teeth did – and he did – before sliding across the faint curve of her breast. 

He lingered for just long enough to look up at her, Arya's cheeks colored with a warm blush and her lips gently parted. "Please?" she breathed, her shoulders digging in to the bed beneath her as she loosened her grip on his arms. That was all Jaqen needed, one last push and his willpower was gone. He groaned faintly against her skin, turning his head to brush his lips across the soft flesh of her breast, tongue teasing the edge of her nipple until it bud hard under his lips. 

Arya's breathing was coming heavier and uneven now, the blush that started in her cheeks continuing down to whatever skin his lips traveled across and quickly catching up with the path he burned along her body. She didn't know what to do with her hands or where, how, to move her body below him, and as he turned to trail his lips to her other breast, she wasn't sure she actually _could_ do anything. Her attention focused so rapt on his every movement that the only thing she could do was bite back faint whimpers in the wake of his teasing. It seemed like every time his mouth touched her skin, the tension in her gut twist tighter, and it became more difficult for her to keep her composure. She really was trying to control herself, but the way his mouth worked was dizzying and she found her own resolve start to slack.

Like every kiss that led up to this, and every passing touch, Jaqen pulled away long before she wanted him to, leaving her wanting. He nuzzled against the soft flesh of her breast, trailing kisses along her ribs, his fingers still brushing lightly over sensitive skin. The little jolts of urgency were starting to get the better of her, and she squirmed beneath him, hands sliding from his arms to his shoulders, and then up to the back of his neck to tangle her fingers in his hair. She trembled a little from the strain of holding back, her light moans edged with a bit of a whine as his hands moved away from her chest.

Then he was pulling away, and Arya reached out for him, leaning up to draw him back down again. Her heart raced, anxious, but he smiled gently and cupped her jaw in his hand, lowering her back down again. "A girl must trust," he said with a raise of his eyebrow, canting his head playfully to the side, "that a man knows what he does."

Arya huffed, but laid back down, watching him settle on his knees between her feet. He looked up and smirked at her, the same lopsided expression he wore so often around her. And yet the glint in his eyes was something else, something darker, than she'd ever seen it. While he trailed his fingers up her legs from her ankles to the back of her knees, he pressed warm kisses to the inside of her knees and down her thighs, pausing to nuzzle against her inner thigh. She whined at the rough slide of his stubble against her skin and pushed at him, but he just chuckled and nipped at the tender flesh. The feel of teeth here, near the place where her thigh and hip met, was even better than the feel of his teeth against her neck and Arya suddenly forgot whatever protests she was going to make about the scratch of his cheek against her skin. She tightened her hand in his hair, neither pulling him closer nor pushing him away, but grasping for purchase on anything she could.

Jaqen took just as much time here as he did elsewhere, the path from her knees down the inside of her legs taking just as long as the path from her neck down. If she had anything to complain about it was that he was taking his time and leaving her to suffer the ever-increasing ache. But he finally slipped his arms under her thighs and lowered himself down between her legs, his hands grasping the narrowest part of her waist, and leaned in to trail his tongue slowly over her.

Her hips twitched in his hands and Arya breathed a low, impatient moan, digging her fingers into the blankets at her sides. She didn't know whether he was teasing or hesitating, but all it took was an insistent nudge with the side of her heel for him to chuckle faintly and press in closer. The slow and easy pace of his movements was done after that, his hold on her tightening, pulling her into him as he pushed back, his tongue seeking out places that Arya herself hadn't even explored. It was overwhelming in a way she hadn't expected, and at time she didn't know whether to pull him closer or push him away. But his hold remained firm, his motions hardly constant or steady, keeping her tipping back and forth between sinking into the bed and pulled rigid beneath him. As soon as she got used to one sensation he changed again, and then again, until she was fighting to catch her breath and covering her mouth to muffle the sound of her moaning and swearing around his name. 

It couldn't have possibly lasted more than a few minutes, and by the time Arya dug her heels into his back, all his effort was going into driving her quickly over the edge. She bit down on her lower lip and reached out for him, finding his hand and holding tight to it as her body jerked and trembled against his mouth. But even then he didn't relent, not until she shoved at him and begged him to stop, to have mercy. 

When he finally did release her, he pushed himself up, smirking like he was the wolf who just caught the sheep's throat in his jaws. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, then leaned down to press kisses to the inside of Arya's thighs, up over her belly and onward along the side of her neck he didn't assault on the way down. Though she was still panting, still trying to recover, he tilted her head towards him and drew her in to a low, slow kiss. 

"Better?" he asked, nuzzling in against her slightly damp hair. Arya just grunted at him, rolling over and wrapping her arms around his waist. For a long while, Jaqen stayed like that, holding her against his chest and running his fingers through her hair, until Arya reached between them and fumbled for the blankets. Lifting his head, Jaqen glanced at the smoldering fire, little more than ashes and few still-burning embers. He pressed a kiss to her forehead and climbed over her, out of bed, leaving her to cocoon herself in the blankets once more. He crouched down long enough to add more wood to the fire and stoke it back into a lightly roaring flame, turning back towards the bed to find Arya rolled on her stomach and breathing deeply. 

Shaking his head at her, he made his way around the end of the bed and slipped in next to her, tugged back what of the blankets she deigned to leave him, and pressed another soft kiss to her shoulder.


End file.
